Gentoo 2008.0 with New Installer

After some turbulence concerning the status of the foundation and many delays, the free Gentoo project has revamped its Linux distribution and released version 2008.0.

In October 2007, the State of New Mexico, where the project resides, originally withdrew the foundation's status due to various formal errors. A number of sponsrs withdrew and Gentoo's founder Robbins was forced to issue a plea for help. These issues also impacted the development of the operating system itself and version 2007.1 was omitted. The foundation regained its status in mid-May and the developers can now go on with their work on the operating system.

In early April the project team released the beta version, and now the final version 2008.0 has been released. Besides updates for various software packages, the programmers say that the most important development is the new installer, improved hardware detection and revamped profiles. Because the installer now uses the packages and ebuild tree from the live CD, the installation will now complete without an Internet connection. The fact that Gentoo has moved to kernel version 2.6.24 means that more hardware drivers are available. Reworking of profiles in Gentoo 2008.0 has helped to reduce redundancies and thus facilitate future development work. From the user's point of view, the profile directories have changed: more information is available on the project's upgrade page. To reduce space requirements, the developers are using the Xfce interface instead of Gnome for the live CD version of version 2008.0 and later. The project team decided not to produce a live DVD for timing reasons.

Gentoo Linux claims to give users easy system configuration and customization options. Gentoo 2008.0 is now available for various platforms from the project page.

Related content

Gentoo is a powerful and flexible Linux system that you can customize to fit perfectly into your environment. Our workshop describes how to set up Gentoo. We’ll also show you how to install and manage software on your Gentoo system with the popular Portage software management system.

Comments

Indeed

Chris Gianelloni

Donnie is correct.

The Gentoo Foundation's lapse in official status had absolutely nothing to do with any release delays. The primary reason for the delays and the cancellation of 2007.1 were purely manpower-related. Even if the Foundation had completely ceased to exist, we still would have canceled 2007.1 and come out with 2008.0 in the exact same manner. The Gentoo Foundation has exactly *ZERO* to do with the day-to-day operation and development of Gentoo Linux. The Foundation is simply an intellectual property container and a bank account.

Some clarifications

Donnie Berkholz

To my knowledge, no sponsors withdrew, and we actually gained a new sponsor. Additionally, although 2007.1 was canceled, it was because of things directly related to the release process rather than the foundation, which has essentially zero impact on development of the distribution.